whoever criticises the recruitment needs their head checking, if you remember the recruitment budget was reduced a lot and we did well to recruit who we did. It's not as if we could sign an international australian HB from down under.

I suppose it was a big defensive effort against a powerful Shudds side and a lot of SL teams are guilty of being a bit flat after an emotional win. I don't think the defeat was due to lack of talent or confidence.
Knock-ons/penalties are a problem but our handling and discipline was exemplary last week. I think we might just need to work on conditioning maybe.

It seems to me that the group of players we have are mentally weak and fragile. When we lose they feel so sorry for themselves that it effects the next two weeks performances. When they win they fall in love with themselves and turn up thinking they are world beaters who just need to turn up to get the points.

I also think that once again we are at that time of year when agents start thinking about getting their men away from Belle Vue. With the RL expected to kick us out of SL the agents job is made easy ( just like when we lost Korki and Griffin some years ago ). The few good players we have, mostly our young lads, will be pressured to sign contracts for a new club now and the contract put in the agents draw until September. For example rumours abound that Griffin has already signed for Crusaders, Leeds Hull and Hull KR want Walshaw, Renaldi to Widnes etc etc etc. Then there are the players who are worried because no one has come in for them yet. They will be on SL money now and have to be concerned about their futures.

What about the coaching staff they must realise that if we are kicked out of SL then the club will not be able to keep them on the same money. Could that be a reason why the team so poorly prepared yesterday?

All these factors I think must be having a negative effect on the squad and that effects their performance on the field

You have to be able to adapt though. It is impossible to grind out a win from 18-0 down.

The question wasnt asked last week because the tactics were right for last weeks conditions. I have however raised the issue before in numerous threads, just not made it a specific poll question.

not really considering when we played cas we were 24-4 down and came out to win 28-24

And we did that by continuing to try and grind it out? Strange, cos I thought we threw the ball about and chanced our arm for a twenty odd minute period and that was what got us back in the game.

The franchise issue has been known since the beginning of the season, and if anything off the field issues have made our case stronger in the recent months, so off the back of that renewed optimism, it would be hoped that performances on the field would improve - which is what Kear promised when he said we would be better by round 27

Last week we won because we kept hold of the ball and didn't give so many silly penalties away. Yesterday it sounded like our ball retention was awful and we were giving penalties away for fun. If you don't respect possession you wont win games regardless of the tactics. I would imagine Kear is as frustrated as the rest of us when the players keep dropping the ball or giving away stupid penalties. We have played more expansive stuff at times but only on the back of getting the basics right first.

well we are better than at the start of the season

Are we though? IMO one of our best performances was Catalans away in the 2nd round. 3 out of our last 4 performances have been woeful. That doesn't indicate to me we are getting better, neither does the fact that we still don't do the basics right and continue to offer nothing in attack.

I think one of the big issues is the instability of the squad.

To have a successful team, playing as a team, week-in week-out, is very important. In the 20 games to press how often have we fielded the same starting line-up 2 weeks in succession? It's been in the critical pivot positions too.

It would be interesting to know how many players have played in each position during this season. Fullbacks: Blaymire, Tony, Murphy? Hyde? Vievers...did Griffin play there once?

Getting any level of expansive rugby is difficult if you're not building communication and understanding with your team-mates.

Based on starting line ups+---------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Position | Players |
+---------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Fullback | Aaron Murphy, Josh Veivers, Matt Blaymire, Motu Tony |
| Winger | Dale Morton, Greg Johnson, Josh Griffin, Josh Veivers, Kevin Penny, Luke George |
| Centre | Aaron Murphy, Chris Dean, Josh Griffin, Luke George |
| Stand Off | Ben Jeffries, Gareth Moore, Jeremy Smith, Kieran Hyde, Tommy Lee |
| Scrumhalf | Jeremy Smith, Matthew Wildie, Sam Obst, Tommy Lee |
| Prop | Kyle Amor, Michael Korkidas, Paul Johnson, Paul King |
| Hooker | James Davey, Julien Rinaldi, Matthew Wildie |
| Second Row | Dale Ferguson, Frankie Mariano, Glenn Morrison, Kevin Henderson, Paul Johnson, Tyrone McCarthy |
| Loose Forward | Glenn Morrison, Stuart Howarth, Tommy Lee, Tyrone McCarthy |
+---------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
[/code

hyde's played FB this year

Thanks for that